Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sandwich, soup, and salad

Eastside Road, March 16, 2011—

FREQUENT VISITORS TO THIS blog will know we don't usually eat like this. Now and then, though, it's interesting to live different for a day or two. Today's Principle Meal was lunch, when I had a ham and cheese sandwich, yes, one of the Hundred Plates, at a curious place in town. You build your own sandwich here from a cold-table full of bins: slices of Provolone, cheddar, ”Swiss,“ or ”American“ cheese, rather difficult to separate; slices of turkey, roast beef, turkey, tuna; shredded lettuce, lettuce leaves, peppers à la grecque, sliced onions, olives. Supermarket bread. Oh: and plastic squeeze-bottles of mustard, catsup, ”garlic aioli,“ and the like. One employee, who weighs your finished sandwich to figure out your bill.

1 comment:

Well, Calvin Trillin made a nice little franchise out of sampling deli sandwiches around the country. I think he was a chili fan too.

There are long-lived, fragile, regional, vernacular, traditions of food preparation all over this broad land, many of which are dying under the advance of the fast food entrepreneurs.

No use trying to dictate propriety to country people, or yahoo suburbans. If you've lived a life of grinding boredom and frustration, simple pleasures packaged to be fun and naughty are as irresistible as sex.